


Apart from Your World (A Part of Mine)

by ApprenticedMagician



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Accidental Marriage?, Alternate Universe, Angst and Humor, M/M, Post-Break Up, Selkies, accidental proposal, awake but unresponsive, light fluff, maybe one step away from a medical drama, purposefully vague descriptions of medical treatment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 18:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15869316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticedMagician/pseuds/ApprenticedMagician
Summary: David is shipping him off to the Isle of Anglesey and, frankly, Neil could use the time and distance away from an ugly break-up that still hasn't smoothed over. The problem is, if he isn't being reminded of his ex (courtesy of working alongside his identical twin brother), then he's being reminded of the mother who abandoned him (courtesy of their assigned patient who suffers the same affliction she once did).All around, it's shaping up to be anything but the trip he signed up for.





	Apart from Your World (A Part of Mine)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stormageddondarklordofbuns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormageddondarklordofbuns/gifts), [nekojita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekojita/gifts).



“Jean Moreau,” Neil mused, perusing his latest patient file with mild interest.

Name, age, blood-type, an address in the United Kingdom. A condition Neil wished he were less familiar with. No previous hospitalization. No family history either, though a small footnote explained the absence via his adoption into the Moriyama household when he was fourteen; whether he had lived with blood relatives or in an orphanage before that, wasn’t specified.

It was an annoyingly thin folder and left Neil with more questions than answers. His meticulous eyes scanned twice over every scrap of printed ink, some distant hunger in him stirring awake without obvious cause.

“What d’you think?” David asked.

Neil flipped the file closed with a quick  _fwip_. “I think there’s got to be a very good reason as to why you’re shipping me out across the pond for a guy we know next to nothing about.”

David rose an eyebrow. It was distinctly unamused. “There is.”

“Do I get to know what it is?”

“Because this Jean Moreau kid is in a rough spot where no one else can help him.”

Neil rolled his eyes because he should have known; that was always David’s reason.

“He’s older than I am,” Neil protested anyway, bristling a little as he always did when David alluded to his supposed immaturity. He wasn’t entirely sure that David’s off-hand ‘kid’ comment counted as a dig against him, but all the better that he cover his bases.

“That ain’t hard since you’re a child.”

_That_ was definitely a dig. Good thing Neil covered his bases; it hadn’t lessened Neil’s petty irritation any, but then, what right did David have to expect any better of a barely-twenty-four year old?

For a man with finely honed, steely muscles all over his body, David Wymack had a disproportionately soft heart. Years ago, when he was still a new chiropractor, he shared an office with other practitioners. David had been disheartened to see how many teenagers and students left their sessions with him carrying all kinds of unsolved stresses, not least of which was affordability. It didn’t help that most of them had come to him to treat athletic injuries or had been in car accidents as new drivers, which were soft spots in David who worried constantly over his own son.

As soon as he accrued a stable reputation, David had separated from that shared office and opened his own practice alongside Abby Winfield, his wife and trained massage therapist, and Betsy Dobson, a friend from college who lead guided meditations when she wasn’t practicing her psychiatry. Their combined strengths had coagulated into a sort of therapy spa for people on a budget and they went home each day proud of the work they did. Neil had only gotten involved a little less than five years ago, when he’d sunk as low as entering every place of business he could find and asking what positions they had available. The Foxpaw Spa hadn’t really had a position per se, but David had taken one look at the ratty clothes and dirty duffle Neil had to call his own and decided that the water feature could use a regular cleaner.

Neil’s role changed somewhat as the years passed, when it became apparent that Neil had an astute intuition concerning a patient’s needs. Eventually he played assistant to the secretaries, commonly welcoming and interviewing new patients to assess what treatments might benefit them most.

Hence, he was holding Jean Moreau’s file and expected to do his job.

“Why am I flying over to him?” Neil asked, trying to whine and divert the subject in the same breath. “I thought you preferred having all your patients inboard.”

“I do,” David huffed, clearly no more pleased about it than Neil was, “but rich people are paying us a lot of money to make an exception.”

Neil snorted before he could keep it down. The simple world always boiled down to money. “Paying _you_ , maybe. Where’s my share?”

“Paying for your travel expenses.” David delivered a light smack to Neil’s head. “You ever think maybe I’m shipping you out ‘cause I’m tired of you pissing me off?”

There was every possibility that was true. Neil was only grateful they hadn’t mentioned the other reason he suspected this assignment came to him - distance from Andrew could only help them both get over… whatever it was that had crumbled between them.

“Hope you demanded a 5-star hotel for me,” Neil said, smoothly ignoring the tug on his heart that thinking of Andrew always brought. “You know I’m one for fancy living.”

“Clearly.” David pointedly looked him up and down, evidently judging Neil’s choice of outfit, which was called ‘comfortable’ by some and ‘ratty’ by others. Many others. Not that they had room to complain - nothing in his wardrobe was older than three years.

David put aside the topic of Neil’s clothes for a later argument. “Anyway, no penthouse suites for you, kid. You and Aaron are to be put up in a modest hotel like the rest of the plebeians.”

Neil froze. He hadn’t been aware that Abby’s prodigy was going to travel with him.

Maybe David meant a different Aaron. “Aaron… Minyard?”

“You know another Aaron?”

No, but there had to be other doctors on David’s roster. “Why is _he_ coming?”

“To conduct a primary physical, assess and treat whatever he can, same as you. These people are pretty insistent on keeping this Jean fellow at home.”

“...We aren’t sharing a room, are we?”

David’s gaze bore hard into Neil’s, probably thinking that sharing a room with his ex’s identical twin brother for an indeterminate amount of time was no less than Neil deserved. Neil knew David didn’t approve of his and Andrew’s - for lack of a better term - break up, but he was doing his best to keep his trap shut about it, leaving them to their own adult vices.

“I didn’t ask,” David dropped. So the good news was now Neil had something to worry about while he traveled thousands of miles over the Atlantic Ocean. “And you best remember what’s really important here.”

Neil mentally punched himself. “Jean Moreau.”

“That’s right: Jean Moreau. Not because we’re getting paid, but because no one else is better able to help him. You and Aaron are two of my best,” knuckles rapped once against Neil’s temple, a soft mix of praise and scolding. “You need to trust that I’m not punishing you. Not now, not ever.”

“But I thought... Andrew is...”

“He’s made of stronger stuff than you, kid.” David probably meant it to be reassuring. Actually, Neil revised, he probably meant it to be chastising - a quiet but growling reminder that Andrew wasn’t any of Neil’s concern while this job lay waiting to be done. “But, ah, on that note. I should mention: Aaron doesn’t know you’re joining him.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because I’m an evil mastermind and manipulation is my passion - why do you think?!” David rubbed his temple as though one question from Neil had given him a migraine. It wouldn’t have been the first time. “I don’t like keeping him in the dark, but right now, I’m not sure Aaron would agree to cooperate if he knew you were involved.”

One solution seemed obvious to Neil. “Then send a different doctor. Or send someone who isn’t me.”

“I keep wondering that myself. But there’s no denying it Neil, you have a way with people no one else can replicate. If the family’s tried other doctors - and odds say they have - the best thing we can offer is whatever your gift is.” David sometimes called it his ‘Untouchable’, which was so much cooler than the ‘X factor’ everyone else used. “As for the other problem, part of me wants to send Abby but she’s needed here. Aaron’s the only one I trust to be discreet.”

Neil would have choked if he had been drinking. “You think Aaron is discreet??”

“In a political sense.” David took a moment to chuckle, as though he was reliving something humourous. “You know, you could learn a thing or two from him while you work this job together.”

“Uh-huh. I was just thinking I needed lessons in pissing people off in five syllables or less **.** ”

“What you need is a zip for your lip. And you already know how to do that. Now look, much as I don’t like it, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t let Aaron know about your involvement.”

“Gonna be hard to do that when I waltz into what might be our shared hotel room.”

“Have him call me when he finds out. Then make yourself scarce; I’m the one who should take the brunt of his anger.”

It was hard to remain indignant in the face of someone that earnest, so Neil dropped the subject. Instead, he reopened the file, poring over the information that Andrew had compiled and organized. That twin had always been good at finding people’s secrets, which was a handy skill to have as a detective-going-on-private investigator. Neil’s eyes caught on the absurdly distant address again. Anglesey, of all the places to have never heard about.

“How did these people even find you? It’s not like the Foxpaw’s got global notoriety.”

The awkward adjustment of his stance told Neil the answer before David spoke, “Kevin referred him.”

Kevin Day was David’s only son and they were all but estranged from each other. The US Court of Exy had always been Kevin’s ambition but a car crash and injury to his left arm had nearly crippled his career before it started. The resulting argument over his future had marred their once close relationship. After a year of physiotherapy with Abby, when they had saved as much mobility as possible, Kevin left home to train under a renowned Coach Whittier who auspiciously lived on the other side of the country. He called rarely and visited even less often. Not even major holidays were a sure time of contact, though he did still call every September 23rd (the anniversary of his mother’s death).

Presently, Kevin should have been recovering from reinjuring his arm in the last Exy World Championships. How he had connected himself with Jean Moreau, a veritable stranger who lived across the world and had a past that even Andrew couldn’t suss out, remained a mystery to Neil.

“I’ll tell Kevin to call if I see him,” Neil offered.

“Puh! You’d have better luck trying to punch his teeth out.” David gave him a once-over and explained, “He’s over six feet, y’know.”

“And, suddenly, I can’t wait to pack my bags and board a plane.”

David tapped a finger against his own temple. It was how he kept count of his arbitrary ‘victories’. “I don’t need to remind you that Aaron’s got lead while you’re over there. If he needs you to do something, you do it.”

“Quietly?”

David laughed. “I’ll leave that up to your discretion.”

 

* * *

 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Somehow, when they came from Aaron’s mouth, those were Neil’s favourite words to hear.

“Wish I were.”

"No. Just… _Fuck_ , no. Not with you.”

“I’m not gonna take that personally. David wants you to call him.”

“Like I care!”

But Neil was already dialling, flippantly ignoring Aaron’s complaints.

“ _Neil?_ ”

“You’ll be thrilled to know we aren’t sharing a room.”

_"Euphoric. You got Aaron?_ ”

“As pissed as a wasp.”

Then he set the call to speaker, left his phone with a near-apoplectic Aaron, and exited room 205. He’d take the ensuing time to fight off the jet lag, probably by reviewing Jean Moreau’s file again, or unpack his own things in 210. But then Aaron’s raised voice started carrying through the walls and Neil was already at his door nearly three rooms away.

Maybe he’d see if the ground floor’s attached cafe was open instead.

 

* * *

 

The nurse that welcomed them at the door the next day was so strikingly beautiful, both Neil and Aaron had to blink several times and restart their mental processes. She was tall, quite a bit taller than either of them, and her blonde hair somehow shaped into a sexy ringlet curl even though it was tied back in a ponytail. She wore bold horn-rimmed glasses and just enough makeup to fool idiots into thinking she wasn’t wearing any at all.

She was so put together that Neil had a hard time believing he and Aaron had the right house. If she truly was the live-in nurse to Jean Moreau - who by all accounts, was awake but unresponsive - then there was no need for her to maintain such enticing appearances.

Neil put a hesitant hand forward, “Hi. Is this the house of Mr. Jean Moreau?”

“The lease isn’t under his name but yes, Jean’s here while he recovers.” Her accent wasn’t as sharp as the rest of her; smooth vowels spoke of a posh and well-off upbringing. She reached out and clutched Neil’s hand in a firm, quick shake, then repeated the gesture with Aaron. “You must be the American specialists. You’ll have to forgive me, your names have completely slipped my mind.”

“Neil Josten.”

“Dr. Aaron Minyard.”

She gave Aaron a quick once-over, then rose a perfect eyebrow at Neil. “No title for you?”

“I’m here primarily as an assistant to Dr. Minyard,” Neil explained. “I also have some personal experience in,” he almost tripped over the name, “Mr. Moreau’s condition.”

Well, close enough to his condition. Neil ignored the side-eye from his companion; apart from David and Andrew, Neil had never made a point of sharing his life story with anyone. But if the nurse was questioning his right to be here, Neil knew he had to put something on the table. With any luck, this concession wouldn’t cost him much; Aaron wasn’t likely to question him on his past, whether they were alone or in front of a stranger.

Huh. Maybe David had a point about Aaron being discreet.

The nurse gave a small bite to her lips, as though she doubted the abilities of one or both of them.

“Other doctors have said the same,”she said, and Neil felt Aaron bristle. He must also have heard the words, ‘ _more experienced_ ’ in place of ‘other’. “But, I’m sure nothing you do can make him worse.”

She moved aside, inviting them in. The nurse, who introduced herself as Katelyn Reynolds, lead them through the foyer, which was smaller than what Neil had expected from a rich family’s private property. After insisting they keep their shoes on, she lead them back further into the living space of the house, where the early noon sun peeked in through the windows.

The patient, Mr. Moreau, was seated in an armchair, his back to the door and his front facing a large window. A woven blanket covered his waist and legs to protect from the September chill. Pitch dark hair fell past his shoulders and hid most of his peripheral vision; not a single hair shone in the sunlight, even though Neil knew Katelyn must keep it washed. It, like the man beneath it, lay limp and dull, with less life inside than could be sensed in a dying flower. He didn’t even seem to particularly enjoy sitting in the sun and there was nothing besides overgrown vegetation to watch outside the window.

It bore such an uncomfortable resemblance to the first twelve years of his childhood that Neil had to dig nails into his palms to suppress the shivers from an old ghost. At the same time, the familiarity inspired an immediate feeling of borderline kinship, something Neil was quite sure was the opposite of professional. He’d have to keep a tight rein on himself for the duration of this trip.

While Aaron grabbed a seat and got himself organized, Neil asked Katelyn about the seating arrangement, curious about the patient’s daily routine and if he had the capacity to have or express preferences.

Katelyn considered for a moment. “Do you know, I couldn’t tell you. I sat him around a lot in the beginning, just for change of scenery, but no matter where I put him, he’d be looking towards that window. Never fussed, mind you. Just looked. I can’t tell if he even notices I don’t put him anywhere else now.”

Neil briefly considered moving him now to test it out but thought it unwise to interrupt Aaron’s initial process. Besides, it probably wouldn’t make the best first impression to disturb the patient’s so drastically.

“Well, if that’ll be all,” in a clear self-dismissal, Katelyn announced, “You’ll find some notes the past doctors left behind on that desk. I’ll be changing the sheets upstairs if anyone needs me.”

Aaron waved in acknowledgement but kept his eyes focused on his patient. Neil watched Katelyn stride away, half-suspecting that she had forgotten their names for a second time.

Pompous Brits.

“Well,” Aaron said, finally seated, instruments in hand, “now that it’s just us, Mr. Moreau, we can get acquainted.”

Neil picked out a chair for himself across the room, watching and observing like Aaron had insisted. While Aaron tried to establish eye contact and asked a few opening questions, Neil stripped off his coat and retrieved the files Katelyn had indicated. He didn’t have much time to look them through before Aaron was snapping his fingers to see them himself.

If they hadn’t been at a job, Neil might have played a mean-spirited game of keep-away. As it was, he was wearing his mantel of ‘professional’, so he passed over the file he had been reading without his usual fuss.

Aaron, naturally, was grateful. “Find a window to open. I don’t want to breathe any air that’s been inside you.”

It wasn’t normally how folks said, ‘thank you’, and it was a testament to Neil’s maturity really, that he set aside his sudden urge to de-age and weaponize all the burps and farts he could manufacture.

Aaron, oblivious to the bullets Neil had just saved him from, leafed through the doctors’ notes. Just to be obnoxious, Neil chose to open the window that had so caught the attention of their unaware patient, stepping around Aaron’s set up and doing what he could to annoy but not disturb.

Unfortunately, Aaron was well practiced in ignoring him. As he read through the notes, he asked the patient, “Is there a particular term of address you’d prefer to go by, or does ‘Mr. Moreau’ suit you?”

Mr. Moreau remained perfectly lifeless. Neil discovered the window was painted shut and moved to check all the room’s windows.

“Mr. Moreau, it is. My name is Dr. Minyard, that’s Neil over there, and we’ve been invited here to assess and treat your condition.” Aaron flipped back and forth between pages dating back to January, probably double-checking notes and numbers he had already memorized.

Not a twitch from Mr. Moreau, not even when Neil gave up on finding an unpainted window and began indelicately tugging at the latch and chipping away at the paint of his original choice with a pen.

“Everyone seems to conclude the same thing: there’s nothing obvious to explain your unresponsiveness, which is odd given your age. You’d expect something obvious to be amiss but your vitals are normal, your organs and their functionality are all astonishingly unremarkable. Even brain scans give no indication that anything should be going wrong.”

“Ha ha!” Neil cheered, finally muscling the window open. Aaron shot him a glare. “What?”

Aaron sighed and flipped the file closed. Neil watched the patient for a flinch from the whip of paper but there was nothing. There probably also hadn’t been anything when Neil had disturbed his field of vision, fighting with the window like he had been. It was surprisingly disheartening.

“Only thing they couldn’t check was a family history. Are there any relatives we can contact?”

Mr. Moreau didn’t answer.

Aaron didn’t look like he had expected anything else. The question had likely been a formality. “Just the preliminary examination then. Neil, if you would remove his shirt for me.”

It unsettled Neil a little to get intimately close and still see no sign of a person in Jean Moreau’s body. His eyes were unfocused and unmoving, their grey irises dull and deadened, like he had already died and his body just didn’t know it yet. He didn’t react at all when Neil lightly tapped his chest, or when his shirt buttons came undone; his arms remained limp when Neil tried to peel the open shirt down and rather than move him like a ragdoll, Neil simply left it at the elbows.

A breeze from outside blew in through the open window, carrying a heavy scent of salt from the nearby sea. As Neil tried to shake away even more unwanted memories, he barely caught sight of the lift of Mr. Moreau’s shoulders – he had just taken a deep breath! Or, well, it was a little too shallow to be considered ‘deep’ but it had been deliberate all the same. Neil darted to look at his eyes but they were just as dim as they had been before. Whatever had made Mr. Moreau act, whether an ingrained habit or instinct, was a primal comfort etched beyond his mind and down in his bones.

Sympathy made Neil mimic with his own deep breath, and it became that much harder to ignore every memory the sea salt wanted to drag from the depths.

It occured then to Neil that within Jean Moreau lay an unforeseen opportunity. The mystery of Neil’s past, the questions he had never answered, may yet have a piece locked away within the mind of Jean Moreau - the man who suffered what might be a more severe case of whatever condition had plagued Neil’s mother.

 

* * *

 

His clearest memory of Mary Hatford was the day he found her hidden treasure and changed everything he’d known about his life.

He was twelve, maybe eleven, when he accidentally discovered the fake wall in the basement. He had been hiding after a cooking accident, sure he would be beaten within an inch of his life when his father came home and discovered he’d stained everything with pasta sauce.

In the middle of heaving around chests and boxes to build a kind of fortress in the basement, something very heavy fell from a top shelf, knocking him back into his fortress and breaking three of his toes. Once he could think past the agony in his right foot, he realized that the heavy object - he remembered it as a bowling ball, but couldn’t say for certain that it had been - had hit the wall before it had hit him, and made a sizeable hole in the plaster where none had been before.

He had been scared out of his mind imagining how much worse his father would hurt him, so much so that he had lost track of time. He had been dragged back to the present when he heard feet making the floorboards creak above him.

_He was home._ His father had come home and he’d been too lost in his panic to realize it. All Neil could do was stare at the ceiling, every muscle tense in the preparation of pain.

The creaks in the floorboards moved towards the kitchen. Neil could have counted the number of breaths he took on one hand.

When there was no immediate bark of, “Junior!”, Nathaniel forced himself to breathe, shaky with relief. It wasn’t his father. Mary must have woken from her nap.

Or otherwise, his father was angry beyond words. Or maybe it was a total stranger who had broken into their -

“Abram?” came a lofty voice. His mother. Her silhouette appeared in the doorway. Nathaniel’s panic eased by 80%.

“Why have you left the stove on?” she asked, hazel eyes glazed over and not quite caring to find him in the darkness of the unlit basement below her. She had addressed her question to a vague spot some distance to his left.

He knew she was a little bit odd; every kid at school told him so. _So spacey,_  they’d say; _like she’s retarded_ , bullies would say; and even teachers and other parents shared looks with each other when they’d approach her to start a conversation but be ignored, deemed less interesting to Mary Hatford than whatever was outside the window at the time. It would happen when they were outside too. From lawn parties to barbeques to watching Fourth of July fireworks, Mary was always looking beyond the horizon to something she couldn’t see.

Only Nathaniel and his father ever noticed that she always looked in the same direction - southeast. Towards the harbour, he eventually found out, though he hadn’t in all the years since discovered what exact significance that place held for her.

“Mom,” he said, trying to keep his crying to a minimum. Tears affected her about as much as attempts at conversation did and her unmoved expression always made him feel belittled, like his pain was nothing and he was silly to waste her time with it. But he needed her help. He couldn’t put weight on his right foot and he would never be able to hide the damage done to the wall without her.

“I can’t walk,” he eventually confessed, cursing himself for the tears still running down his face.

"Can’t you crawl?”

The question was a spear that pierced his chest. She hadn’t moved to walk down the stairs. She wasn’t going to come help him. He burst into fresh tears but knew she would leave if he didn’t at least try. He tried to roll onto his hands and knees but his foot knocked into a nearby box and he yelped at the fresh bolt of pain that ran up his leg. The fortress he had made to protect him was now a trap, as tight and enclosed as a coffin.

He must have blubbered something to her about this, because the next thing he remembered was the sound of the stairs bending under her sleight weight, like something poorly hinged. He thought again of a coffin and cried again at the idea that dying could be this miserable.

“Come here, Abram,” she said, kneeling on the floor before the chests and boxes, her arms open towards him but her eyes turned towards the doorway above them, looking forever southeast. He stretched out his arms but couldn’t reach her. He strained and struggled to reach a little further but he couldn’t make it. She didn’t notice.

It was nothing, one neglect atop a lifetime of thousands. But it was one neglect too much.

“ _Mom!!_ ” he had screamed, desperate for her to see him, to hold him, wanting her to love him, and kiss all his pain away like other mothers did.

She sighed but she looked. And then her eyes flicked to the hole in the wall behind him and he saw a spark light in her that had never been there before. Her hands withdrew from him and began to tremble.

“What is…” and then without warning she was shoving boxes aside, indiscriminately letting them fall to the floor, uncaring about the shatters from within them or the contents they spilled along the floor, uncaring also about the traumatized son she was literally crawling over to reach the wall.

He thought he was apologizing for something at that point. Or maybe he was struck dumb by the foreign outburst of desperation and flurry of unprecedented activity. Probably he had succumbed to tears again - he had been an easy crier all his life. But no matter what he had done, he remembers the sight of her punching, scratching, tearing at the wall, trying anything to make the hole bigger, ignoring blood and splinters to her hands, tossing chunks of drywall and insulation aside and not even realizing when she threw pieces into her son’s eyes.

And then she stopped.

Because she had found _it_.

A mound of sickly brown fur, no more than a few meters long, that vaguely smelled of mold, mouse droppings, and old fish. She buried her face in it and christened the reverential embrace with a flood of tears that he had never seen her release before.

The lifetime of seeing nothing in his mother besides vacancy and severe depression was over. He had finally seen her heart and it had only broken his.

Because in that moment, he knew that she loved this hidden rotten skin more than she had ever loved her only son.

 

* * *

 

Little changed in the following weeks. Aaron had dedicated all his time into working the case, which meant he ostensibly avoided Neil when they weren’t at the house. Nothing Aaron did illuminated more than the past doctors had managed and Neil’s untouchable intuition was useless in the face of such lifelessness. Unlike Mary, Jean never had periods of lucidity or self-chosen mobility; Neil privately doubted he would flinch away even if they applied fire or ice to his skin, but he wasn’t prepared to test it.

The lack of progress frustrated Aaron, who was as competitive as he was brilliant, and he eventually left daily check-ups to Neil while he scoured whatever archives he could for cases of precedence. As a result, Neil had almost come to enjoy his quiet morning routines. A little gossip with Katelyn, an experiment in brewing his morning tea, and then Katelyn would leave for shopping or any other excuse she could think up to leave and meet whichever beau was making her come back giggling over smeared lipstick. In the meantime, Neil would be alone to chat aimlessly to Jean Moreau, whose silences began feeling familiar, if still discouraging.

Then one morning, Neil’s routine was disrupted. For one thing, Katelyn was noticeably absent. For another, Jean had a visitor.

“Oh,” Neil said, unsure exactly who - or what - he was interrupting. “Hello…?”

The stranger was perched on the arm of Jean’s chair, practically on top of him, and had leaned in close to murmur softly in Jean’s ears. One of their hands carded rhythmically through Jean’s hair and they didn’t stop upon Neil’s entrance. If anything, the man gave a little smile towards Neil, and whispered some final message. He straightened his posture without rising from his seat, eyes and hands remaining where they were.

Something about the intimacy felt off, and Neil knew it wasn’t only because one party of the interaction was more or less an upright comatose. To be fair, Neil often felt a little uncomfortable watching displays of affection or intimacy. It stirred up an emotion that was distressingly close to jealousy, but manifested itself more like a peckish hunger, like some vacant cavern inside him was lightly gnawing at his stomach. Since being with Andrew… since _losing_ Andrew, Neil’s discomfort had only grown worse.

He tried to dispel the feeling the same he would a buzzing gnat, but there were other distressing feelings ready to take its place. So Neil turned away from the scene to busy his hands with setting down his things and stripping his coat; the gnawing barely lessened, its squirming moved from his stomach to the base of his spine, mixing itself with a protective streak Neil hadn’t known he was nurturing.

When the man was done whispering sweet nothings, he cleared his throat and stood from his seat. Neil noticed he kept one hand resting on the back of Jean’s chair.

He was a short man, though not shorter than Neil, and his features spoke of an Asian heritage. Though he didn’t look far from Neil’s age, he was dressed in a three piece suit – blue, and probably made of some expensive natural fibre – with shoes that were so polished they might have been brand new. Something about the man’s ability to stand tall despite his average height told Neil this was a man who was used to having control over every aspect of his life and Neil had just interrupted something quite obviously private.

“You must be the American doctor,” he said, all polished accent and cordial smile, as though he were pleased Neil had come. His teeth were as glossy as his shoes and white as his collared shirt.

Neil didn’t want to correct the man’s assumption, just in case medical authority was the only thing permitting his presence in the room. If he thought Neil wasn’t qualified to examine Jean, Neil wasn’t sure there was anything he could do or say to convince him otherwise. Jean offered Neil too great an opportunity to let slip away because some rich boy decided he wasn’t ‘worthy’.

“I’m afraid we haven’t met,” Neil said, offering a stiff hand.

“Of course.” The hand offered in return was manicured and covered in thick, jewel-encrusted rings. Neil fought a wince when they clasped hands and one of the rings pinched his palm.

“Riko Moriyama,” went the introduction. “I’m the one who commissioned your services, doctor.”

Neil dropped the handshake like it was a cold fish. He had, of course, known that the Moriyamas were the ones signing all the cheques, but he hadn’t known he would personally meet the second heir of the family and barge in on an intimate moment between him and patient.

For years, Neil had mistakenly thought the Moriyamas were England’s Royal Family, given that his father had spoken so highly about them. Nathan’s admiration was rooted in their wealth and long-standing economic and political fixture in Britain and anyone his father admired was someone to be wary of since very little apart from brutality and power caught Nathan Wesninski’s eye. (Neil had never found out if Mary had been an exception or just another example.)

“Mr. Moriyama,” Neil choked, half-sure he should just fess up and admit to his lie right the hell now. “I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Strange, seeing as it’s my own property. I suppose Katelyn forgot to tell you; I make a habit of dropping by, whenever business allows me. So that he doesn’t think I’ve forgotten him.” Riko gave a light tug to the loose, tangled tresses of Jean’s hair. Was that bile burning up Neil’s throat or just his imagination?

“I’m sure he knows,” Neil offered, though he didn’t hold much hope that it helped. Neil had waited years for Mary and it hadn’t made a spot of difference.

Sometimes his father would wait too, on the weeks she’d lapse from vacant living into waking unresponsiveness. Nathan sometimes brought home gifts of jewelry or little sweets to share with her, might have held her hand and told her about his day. Neil copied him whenever he left to work the family butcher shop.

None of it had mattered. Mary had never surfaced for them. Always she had done it on her own, and always she claimed no memory of the days that had passed or the hours they had spent at her side.

It probably wouldn’t help to let Riko know that though. So Neil said, “Let me reassure you that we’re doing everything we can to help Mr. Moreau.”

“I’m sure you are,” Riko said, polite as a mongoose. “Doctor, let me remind you that Jean here, should want for nothing – cost isn’t an issue. If there’s anything you need, or anything I can do to help, you can consider it done the moment you conceive it.”

That reminded Neil that he had a job to do, so he cleared his throat, feeling as though the words were pushing their way through shards of glass, “We’ll want to,” he reminded himself of Riko’s pressed and expensive appearance, “ _conduct_ an interview to learn more about Mr. Moreau’s condition – when it started, what may have triggered it, any details you can recall. Also any family history you know of. When is your next best availability?”

“Oh, well,” Riko looked at his watch, as polished and quality-branded as everything else on his person. “Not today, I’m afraid. I run a tight schedule and in ten minutes the Weston’s have some explaining to do. I’ll have to check with my secretary and have her call you.”

Riko held his hand out and Neil worried he was expecting a business card. He also wasn’t entirely certain that Riko wouldn’t run a comprehensive background check on him if he gave his actual cell number, and the idea of that invasion of privacy made Neil’s skin crawl.

“Have her call the house,” he said, shaking his head and kicking himself for being rude. The survivor in him didn’t care. “Someone is always here with him. But please give us as much notice as you can.”

Riko nodded with a gracious smile. “Certainly. I’ll send a car as well. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, else I’ll be late for what I’m sure is a brilliant explanation.”

He held back a moment longer to drop a kiss to the crown of Jean’s head, murmured a goodbye too soft for Neil to hear, then did little more than wave a hand as he strode past Neil to the front door. Neil was startled to realize the man’s suit jacket had old-fashioned coattails that flowed behind him as though he were a badly animated villain. The sight choked back the goodbye in his throat and before he could free it, the youngest heir to the Moriyama empire had shut the door behind him.

A laugh leapt from his mouth before he could slap it back with his palm. Neil gave himself ten seconds of incredulous mirth before he recalibrated himself and approached Jean for observation. He hadn’t moved during Neil and Riko’s conversation, but now that he rounded Jean’s chair, Neil saw that Jean’s eyes were closed and his breathing was slow.

...Which was odd.

Neil double-checked their notes, looked at his watch, then checked the notes again. He was correct; according to Katelyn’s reports and Neil’s own observations, Jean slept little more than five hours a day, and always during the coldest hours of the night. Occasionally he napped on sunny days, but if there was cloudcover, he generally remained awake and spent the daytime hours endlessly gazing out the window.

Today was running a high of 14 degrees. The sun was well hidden and clouds threatened to spill rain on anyone who played chicken by dawdling outside.

“Mr. Moreau?” Neil prodded, kneeling down and laying a gentle hand on his patient’s ankle, an easy position to be kicked away if he was intruding and also his regular spot when he talked to Jean. “Are you awake?”

Distantly, Neil heard a car engine rumble to life and roll away, the tires disturbing rocks on the pavement. Jean’s eyelids cracked open a slight amount, then fluttered open a little more when he saw it was Neil in front of him. He shifted his spine a little this way and that to stretch, then settled back and turned his gaze out the window towards the horizon.

Neil could hardly believe his eyes.

Jean had been faking.

He had been _feigning sleep_!

Once Neil got over this stunning development – Jean could _identify_ people in the room, it made a bloody _difference_ to him who was and wasn’t there – he fumbled around for a working pen and scribbled down a quick note before he got carried away with himself.

“So you are in there,” Neil said, mostly to himself since Jean apparently identified him as ‘someone to ignore’. It was the first time Jean’s silence was encouraging. “I don’t blame you for hiding from that prick. In fact, after a visit like that, I think it’s best we wash your hair.”

Jean’s eyes met Neil’s in the space after his suggestion and Neil couldn’t help feeling a little hypnotized because where there had once been nothing to read in Jean’s grey eyes now ran a dim ember of Something (Someone) emerging. Neil waited, just in case something more would happen, but his patience wrought no change. As he hefted Jean into his wheelchair - carefully, the way he had watched and helped Katelyn do so many times - Neil was careful not to break this newfound connection.

Their eye contact - their first _real_ eye contact - held from the living room to the bathroom, which was equipped with a detachable shower head and stocked with all manner of hair products. Their gaze didn’t break when Neil moved around the shelves (arms flailing a little, blind as he was to everything that wasn’t Jean), gathering products and trying to get Jean in the most comfortable position. Through some miracle of miracles, Neil had caught Mr. Moreau’s attention and it didn’t shift elsewhere until the first spray of water ran over his scalp.

“Too hot?” Neil asked, not really expecting an answer, now that Jean was watching the backs of his eyelids.

But his expectations failed him again, and he nearly dropped the hose when Jean _hummed_ in a discernible intonation expressing a negative - ‘mmn-mn’.

Neil couldn’t help the smile unfurling on his face. “Well, you just let me know if that changes.”

Another hum.

Maybe Mr. Moreau – with his big, grey, slowly sparkling eyes – had been waiting for someone to understand how miserable he was.

“So tell me,” Neil said, all previous discomfort forgotten and replaced with this giddy energy, “what are the odds that Prince Junior owns a cane and monocle?”

 

* * *

 

True to his word, Riko sent a car to the house a couple days later. Neil had explained the brief awareness Jean had demonstrated and Aaron was in the process of trying to replicate a response when Katelyn interrupted them, saying, “Aaron? There’s a man here to take you to see Riko Moriyama.”

Aaron looked utterly perplexed. “Why would I need to see...?”

“Oh, he probably expects to see me,” Neil said. “Did I not mention I ran into him that day? And accidentally impersonated you in the process?”

Aaron glared his way right through Neil’s played-up innocence. “It must have slipped your mind.”

Annoyingly, that banter was the most useful thing to occur that hour. Riko had made a show of verbalizing a policy of ‘anything and everything to help’, but in practice he was both loquacious and tight-lipped. He spoke a great many words, but since many of them were wasted platitudes or pleasantries and he let nothing slip of real substance. A near hour of uncomfortable privacy with Riko (who remained unaware of Neil’s fluke deception) and Neil wasn’t a single step closer to filling in the big blank that was the initial incident or Jean’s family history.

Well, at the very least, Neil had learned that dealings with the Weston’s was running into complications which meant he’d be unavailable for the foreseeable future and could Neil pass on Riko’s apologies to Jean? At least Jean ought to appreciate the good news, even if Aaron would scowl about the bad.

 

* * *

 

_“Get lost, Neil.” Did Andrew really have a right to complain when that’s exactly what he went and did?_

_“You were gone for two days! Everyone kept asking me_ _where you were!”_

_“Gee, that must have been strange for you, not knowing the answer for once.”_

_“Don’t get lippy with me, Neil. You should have called me. Or David or-”_

_“Or maybe, for once, I wanted to do my thing without asking your express permission.” (Yes or no?)_

_“...The hell is that supposed to mean?”_

_“It means I’m sick of you telling me what to do but then turning around and acting like you aren’t micromanaging my life.”_

_“You know what, Neil? Today’s your lucky day because there’s an easy solution to that. We’re done.” Andrew wasn’t listening. Again. “Pack your things and get out.”_

_Neil could have screamed. He wanted to hit something. Instead, he followed Andrew’s last command to the letter._

_“I don’t want to see you again.”_

_Which of them had said that?_

_He was standing on a beach, trying to remember. Then he was sunk, not in water but in quicksand. He hadn’t realized he had been standing in quicksand all along and it had been consuming him, inch by inch. It had him nearly up to his knee by then, grip too strong for him to wiggle out of._

_“Andrew?!” He called, asking for help._

_Sickly grass and black vines began sprouting from the sand, crawling and slithering their way up his legs to still his struggle. Whispers seemed to come from them, promising all manner of enticements in a language he understood but didn’t speak. ‘Be ours,’ they said, ‘as we shall be yours.’_

_They bit his hands away when he tore at them, armed with blades and thorns, hissing all the while, ‘To have and to hold from this day forward.’_

_‘In sickness and in -’_

Neil woke before the vow could finish, trembling and panting and soaked through from the cold sweat that coated his body.

The hotel’s clock read 3:48. He needed to run.

 

* * *

 

It was easier to breathe by the sea. Running in the sand gave his muscles a more satisfying burn, and his heartbeat fell in time with the waves as though the sea itself was its personal metronome, calming his panic and dispelling the worst of the nightmare’s details.

By the time he began cooling down, Neil felt nothing but the usual restlessness that followed after a morning run, like his body began the run expecting to fly by the end of it. Despite the endorphins, exercise often left Neil disappointed, like there was an invisible extra muscle in his back he hadn’t managed to stretch. He had asked Aaron about it once only to be scoffed at and told it was probably his bat wings beginning to strain under the pressure of being hidden away all the time.

That didn’t even make the top ten reasons Neil thought Aaron was a Top Notch Bastard. For fun, Neil went through the list as he paced himself back the way he came. He had only made it to item number five when something made him pause; a small flock of seagulls were gathered in the shallows, squawking and pecking at something that had washed ashore.

Neil drew closer without giving it much thought, birds scattering one by one as he came close, revealing the dead animal they had been fussing over. Or so he thought, until the last bird took off and hit the thing, rolling it over to collapse in on itself; not a full-bodied animal, just the pelt of one.

But it looked suspiciously like… no... It couldn't be but it was.

Not just a random pelt, he realized, ice flooding his veins. He knew those spots, knew that colour. Picking it up, he knew the rough dimensions of it without close evaluation, knew where the bent hairs were and how long the whiskers would be.

It was his mother’s seal pelt, the one she had dug out of the basement wall all those years ago, the same one she had left behind without explanation when she abandoned him on the eve of his sixteenth birthday.

The same pelt he had given to Andrew, over a year ago when he’d first propositioned him to look for his mother.

 

* * *

 

_“Anyone ever tell you that you expect too much from people?”_

_“Yeah,” Neil replied, happy to roll around in their brand new bed sheets like a smiling toddler, “my boyfriend tells me that all the time.”_

_Andrew snorted, tossing the recently-gifted pelt down beside the bed. “I’m not your boyfriend. I’m also not a miracle worker. Your mom disappeared six years ago, you think I can find her? A detective who hasn’t even framed his certification yet?”_

_“You and I both know you’re never framing your certification.”_

_“Neil.” Andrew stopped him, calloused hands warming his bare shoulders, hazel eyes clear and earnest. “I’m serious. You always look at me like I hung the fucking moon in the sky and when I don’t find your mother -”_

_“If.”_

_“When I don’t find her, I don’t want you to be disappointed.”_

_Neil cocked his head. “You think I’ll think less of you?” He watched Andrew stop himself from biting his lip, but the tightening of his grip told Neil everything. “Andrew, first, I’ve never given this pelt up to anyone so I’m doing my best to rig the competition. And second, even if you fail, you won’t be any worse than all the other detectives I’ve asked to look for her.”_

_“Then why ask me at all?”_

_Neil’s smile grew a little sad and he raised a hand to Andrew’s cheek, rubbing a thumb there, where Andrew was softest. “This coming from the man who became a detective to find his father.”_

_It was the first time Andrew looked like he regretted ever sharing that secret. Neil drew Andrew closer, just to kiss his nose and breathe him in, trying to make Andrew feel safe with vulnerability again. “You know why I can’t stop asking.”_

_“My problem is that you think I’m your answer.”_

_Neil didn’t let him pull away. He didn’t let him look away either, rubbing patiently until hazel met blue._

_“You are. You are my answer, Drew. I was just asking the wrong questions.”_

_Andrew glared like he wanted to swat him. Neil giggled a little and rose up to roll them over, sprawling Andrew on his back in the middle of their unchristened (very-soon-to-be-christened) sheets._

_“I can see that number in your eyes,” he teased, bending down to nip at Andrew’s mouth. “But I’m serious,” he said, drilling his next words into Andrew’s eyes so he understood. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone. You just have this hold on me somehow.”_

_Dryly, “Any idea how I break it?”_

_Neil shook his head, grinning when it meant their noses brushed. Andrew pulled him down to meet his mouth, cleverly tossing in a mumbled, “Eighty-seven percent” between them._

 

* * *

 

Neil would be biting his nails if his hands weren’t shaking so damn much. As the call rang and rang without answer, his feet marched loops around the perimeter of his room. When the call went to voicemail, he hung up and redialed again, not sparing a thought to the potential time difference. His eyes were restless, trying to look anywhere but the soggen pelt he had thrown on his bed.

When the line finally connected, Neil didn’t wait. “What did you do?”

“... _You need to be more specific._ ”

Neil had never felt more like throwing something. “The pelt I gave you! Tell me you lost it. Was it stolen?”

“ _…_ ” 

Neil’s whole heart sank. “No…”

Andrew sighed. “ _Neil -_ ”

“You tossed it.”

“ _…I didn’t know you’d be there._ ”

The world fell apart a little. Then Neil realized he had just fallen into a seat on his bed. Andrew must have given the pelt to Aaron, or else Aaron had convinced Andrew to let him take it out of his life. But Andrew could have returned it; he knew what it was, knew how irreplaceable it was in Neil’s life. Instead, Andrew had turned to malice and Neil couldn’t help but feel responsible for that.

All at once, Neil realized how hard he was breathing, trying to hold himself and everything he was feeling together in one piece.

“Did you do it because you hate me?”

He didn’t really mean to ask. It had just been something to say but now that it was out there, every second Andrew spent not answering sent Neil’s anxiety skyrocketing.

“ _I did it because I don’t._ ”

“Careful,” Neil warned, choking back whatever was rising in his throat, “I might remember that the next time you tell me otherwise.”

“ _I didn’t exactly expect to have the opportunity!_ ”

Neil couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He didn’t have the right to demand any answers from Andrew – wonderful, singular, once-in-a-lifetime Andrew, who had almost been enough to make Neil forget about all his missing pieces.

“I’m sorry,” he said, bereft of any other words. “I shouldn’t have called.”

“ _Don’t -_ ” But Neil had already hung up. It was the first time in a long time that he hadn’t done as Andrew said and it wasn’t nearly as freeing as he had thought it would be.

* * *

 

Neil didn’t plan on leaving his room that day. The sun rose and his alarm went off, but Neil didn’t move from the ball he’d curled into on the bed, fur in hand, tears wetting the duvet.

Time passed. Housekeeping knocked and he didn’t quite have the energy restored to yell them away. They left when they opened the door and saw him lying there, apologies falling on ears that didn’t care to hear them. Time passed.

They knocked again but this time Neil could tell them to go away. He heard footsteps fade out and sunk back into his pity party. He felt like he was going to let loose a fresh wave of tears when his door swung open, slamming itself into the wall behind it, and a pissed off Aaron Minyard stormed inside.

“You don’t get to tell me to ‘go away’, asshole.”

Great.

“Get the fuck up,” Aaron spat, looking more disgusted with Neil than he usually was. “You don’t get to be miserable right now.”

Normally, Neil would have challenged him on that. On another day, maybe Neil would have stayed down like a petulant child trying to use their own body weight to stop the world from spinning on its axis, but he didn’t yet have the energy for a fight; rather the opposite, Neil felt like he deserved a little roughing up.

He sat and then he stood, wiping the tear tracks from his face for some semblance of dignity. There wouldn’t be any pity points to win from Aaron anyway.

Hazel eyes darted when they took in the rescued pelt, but Aaron did nothing to acknowledge it otherwise. “Where’s your phone?”

Neil pointed to the floor, where he had let it fall after the call. Aaron swiped it up and began tapping - Andrew had warned him countless times about setting a passlock.

“First off,” Aaron warned, hurling the tampered phone to Neil’s chest, “you don’t get to call him again.”

_Contact Deleted,_ read the phone's screen. It was wrong maybe, how that single sentence shot a fresh wound into his ribcage, but at least the indignation over Aaron trespassing on Neil’s personal business did more to spark him back to life than hours of moping around had.

“Second,” Aaron continued, “you’re here to do a job. So if Katelyn ever calls me again, wondering why you’re running late for morning checkup, you’ll be the next thing I throw off a cliffside. Understand?”

Not really. Neil’s mind was like a stalled car that wouldn’t start, stuck over and over on just one thing.

“It was your idea, wasn’t it?”

“Excuse me.”

Neil couldn’t move past this revelation. “You’ve always wanted to hurt me more than Andrew has. It was your idea to bring the pelt here, toss it away where you thought I could never find it.”

“I should be flattered that you think so highly of me, and I’ve never been less happy to tell you this, but you’re wrong. I didn’t believe him when he insisted that thing was important to you. Practically had to sneak it into my luggage to get me to take it.”  

Knives. There were knives in his lungs and they sharpened themselves on his bones every time he breathed.

“Now, we could stand here all day doing the opposite of comforting you because, frankly, I don’t owe you an explanation; or, you can pick yourself up and dust yourself off for coffee with Kevin Day.”

If that wasn’t a damn shock to his system. “Kevin? You found him?”

“Wasn’t hard. He’s agreed to a two o’clock interview. You have until then to remember that just because Andrew isn’t counting on you anymore, doesn’t mean no one else is.”

 

* * *

 

Aaron was so much worse to work with when he was right. Jean was counting on him. Or he wasn’t, but Neil was still the only person he could be bothered to make eye contact with. If Jean was going to improve, Neil probably had to be the one to coax him out. And since Neil didn’t exactly trust that Kevin would inspire any brilliant ideas, all Neil had was his crazy one, wrapped snug in the brown paper bag under his arm.

Katelyn didn’t seem convinced by his shambled ‘under the weather’ excuse, but she seemed to intuit that something rough had happened because she laid a hand on his shoulder for a few moments.

“Any change?” Neil coughed, trying to dislodge those caregiving eyes.

“Oh, yes,” Katelyn chirped, “he’s kicked up quite the fuss in missing you.”

He thought she was joking but when he entered the seating area where Jean normally spent his days, he was facing the doorway instead of the window and the blanket that was normally tucked around his waist lay rumpled on the floor. As they entered, his head turned, somewhat aimlessly, back to the window, almost like he didn’t want Neil or Katelyn to know he had been looking.

Katelyn laughed at Neil’s dumbstruck face and patted his shoulder saying, “I’ll leave you alone to beg forgiveness.”

This was insane. Absolutely certifiably nuts. It had been a stupid idea in the first place and now it would probably do nothing but burn whatever connection Jean felt with him.

But so what if it did? Failing here wouldn’t be the worst thing Neil had done today.

“Hi, Jean,” he said, kneeling down in front as normal. Jean didn’t look at him. “Yeah, you’re not the only person mad with me. You might even be fourth down the line today. What d’you think - did Katelyn seem angry to you?”

No response. Neil began unwrapping his gift.

“You might be the only person I can make it up to… Not that you want to hear the drama about my ex and his overprotective brother, I’m sure.” Mary’s pelt unfolded in his arms. Neil sighed to feel it’s familiar smoothness again, still fascinated at how it shone and felt warm against his skin.

“This,” Neil said, draping the pelt over Jean’s knees, “is what broke my mother out of... whatever haze she had been living in. Maybe it’s magic. Maybe it’s… I dunno. She never told me what was so important about it, I just knew she reached for it whenever things got hard.” And things were often hard those years they lived on the road, driving up and down American coastlines, with no answer as to when they were going home - if they had a home.

A peek up at Jean revealed no change. Neil tried not to be disappointed. After all, it was just one dead-end among all the rest. He moved one of Jean’s hands atop the fur, hoping its softness reached him.

The clock chimed and Neil sighed. He’d leave as soon as Katelyn returned. “Just hold onto that for me, then. At least you can be trusted not to chuck it off cliffs.”

 

* * *

 

Kevin Day was taller in person than he looked on camera. He may even have been taller than his father, but Neil thought that was at least in part due to the fact that Kevin’s posture was ramrod straight, like it was his spine that had been set and cast instead of his left arm. Kevin was scoping the door from his seat at the cafe table, and it wasn’t until his eyes passed twice over him that Neil realized Kevin would have no idea what Jean’s caretakers looked like. For a moment, Neil hesitated to approach, but then Aaron entered behind him and Kevin’s eyes latched on like a hawk sighting a field mouse.

“Andrew?” Kevin called, getting Neil to seize at the idea that Andrew and Aaron were at all similar enough to be mistaken for each other, nevermind that they were identical twins.

A quick correction and two black coffees later, Aaron and Neil were sat down across from the world’s youngest back-to-back Exy World Championship athlete.

“How’s Jean?” Kevin asked, tapping his good fingers against his half-empty mug.

Aaron took a sip to mull over the best word to use. Neil, since he wasn’t a doctor, didn’t jump in. “Stuck,” Aaron decided. “He’s shown some positive signs but with limitations.”

Kevin’s eyebrows rose. “Really? Good. That’s good.”

“You don’t seem sure about that.”

“That’s because you asked to meet with me. I thought things would be bad. You said you were looking to fill some gaps.”

“We are. Family history seems to be impossible to find, no matter how much money the family lines their suit jackets with.”

Kevin’s judgemental face said lack of family history didn’t seem so rare or insurmountable a problem, particularly if they’d already had some measure of success. His mouth said, “If money can’t answer your questions, why do you think I can?”

“How well do you know Jean?”

“Distantly, I guess. It’s Riko I know better, since my mom was close friends with his uncle. But if it’s family history you want, I’m sure Riko already told you it’s a waste of time; Jean doesn’t have a family beyond the Moriyamas.”

“That’s not possible,” Neil interjected, bristling. “He has his own name, he had to have come from somewhere.”

Kevin shrugged, uninterested. “Far as I know, the Moreau's never existed. All Riko's ever said is that Jean was gifted to him by the gods. He saved Jean’s life, you know.” At both their expectant looks, Kevin sighed and elaborated the story, “It was Riko’s thirteenth birthday and he wanted a party under the stars. So, everyone got on the yacht and they sailed us out to sea. In the middle of it, someone noticed something splashing over the side. Turns out the boat had caught and dragged a fisher’s net; we thought a fish or something had gotten tangled but it was just Jean. Naked,” he shuddered, as though he were the one most traumatized in the story.

“In the middle of the ocean? How did he end up there?”

“Wouldn’t explain. Well, not beyond some mad ravings. I remember he kept trying to dive back overboard. Pale as anything, soaked to the bone - insisting his family was out there and he was going to be late going home.”

Neil brushed away the memory of his mother, pacing American coastlines, telling him of the family they had waiting for them, if she could just remember the proper way back.

“So he has a history of delusions,” Aaron tried to confirm but Kevin shook his head.

“For all I know, the Moreau’s were the victims of a shipwreck and Jean was just in shock. Riko calmed him down, after he managed to wrestle that blanket away from him, get him into dry clothes.”

“Blanket?” Neil asked.

“Some ratty thing he kept clinging to.”

Before Neil could question him further, Aaron’s phone began to rang. It displayed Katelyn’s name.

“What’s up?” Aaron said, clearing his throat. Neil gave him some heavy side-eye for that but before he could examine why, Aaron let out a near-yelp of, “What!?”

Then he scrambled out of his chair, slapping Neil’s shoulder as he moved. “We have to go - _no,_ Katelyn, don’t do _anything,_ we’re coming right away - get _moving!_ ” He slapped Neil again before hanging up, then dropped a few coins next to their half-full coffee cups before rushing out the door.

Neil spared enough time to say, “Call your dad!” to Kevin, and then put on some speed to catch up to Aaron, who had already hailed a taxi from the main road and was climbing inside. Neil ran to follow him in, just in case Aaron decided the urgency was reason enough to abandon him.

"What’s happened?” Neil asked, heart beating wildly in his chest, hopeful and frightened all at once because only two developments could have moved Aaron this quickly.

“You son of a bitch,” Aaron gasped, out of breath with disbelief. “He’s awake.”

 

* * *

 

The house was as quiet as it usually was, but there was a new layer of tension in the air that hung like heavy humidity, threatening the unleashing of a storm. Katelyn came to intercept them as soon as they came through the door.

“Shh, shh, shush!” she urged, her gesticulations oversized and brazen, driving them back. There was a wild glamour to her eyes, a type of desperation that had her hair lying out in bits and pieces and her collar askew.

“Did he _hurt_ you?” Aaron demanded, echoing Neil’s first assumption, even though he didn’t believe Jean could have managed much movement after months of inactivity.

“What?” Katelyn hissed, attention distracted between them and the sitting room. “No, don’t be silly. And keep your voice down!”

In the moment immediately after, Neil finally heard it, a voice that was both old from disuse and new to his ears.

“… salt…” it croaked.

Neil froze, ears straining to hear it again, neurons rapid firing, looking to an also-frozen Aaron to ensure he hadn’t fallen to hallucination.

“… where…?”

He felt nine years old again, startled by one of Mary’s spontaneous resurgences of consciousness after a few weeks of nothing, walking on eggshells around her, trying desperately not to push her back into the stillness of her melancholy.

“What happened?” Aaron whispered, no louder than Jean had been.

“I have no idea. I was going through his usual stretches but when I went for his legs, he resisted. Wouldn’t let me lift them. That’s when he tried to say something. Fell into a coughing fit. I’ve been giving him water since then and he’s only just calmed down a minute ago. I… I think he’ll be alright with three of us.”  

Armed with caution, the three of them edged forward, though Aaron jumped at a passing siren as they went. Neil would have laughed if he hadn’t caught sight of Jean, plastic cup of water in one hand, seal skin pinned under the other. Stiff, thin fingers twitched along the fur, movements slow and jerky, like his fingers had forgotten how to glide. A tingle ran up Neil’s spine in time with them. Neil felt he ought to be hearing the knuckles creak and crack, as ancient and rusty as the voice had been, but they moved without sound. For all his sudden animation, Jean remained as near-silent as ever.

When he had almost moved as close as he dared, Jean’s eyes found his - the grey in them now flecked with bits of a wintery blue. Neil froze, unsure whether he was being invited or threatened.

“Jean?”

“...Neil...”  It escaped his mouth in a putrid rasp, as if Jean had been rotting inside his own body these past few months. A hint of a lilting, exotic accent shone through, as if his first language was a dialect of French Neil had never heard before.

It was one of the most wondrous sounds Neil had ever heard.

The cup was dropped as Jean reached out a hand for him. Neil took it and settled into his usual spot, ignoring Katelyn as she swooped in to clean the spilled water.

“I’m here.”

Jean intertwined their fingers.  

Aaron decided to interrupt. “Neil, what the hell is that doing here?” He was pointing to the fur Jean was still petting intermittently.

It seemed an odd question until Neil realized Aaron had no idea the fur’s significance, only that it was important to Neil. He briefly explained, “It helped my mom when she was like this. It seemed as good a shot as any.” But he had no idea why it had worked.

Aaron evidently agreed. “Something else must have happened. What else did you do?”

“Nothing -”

“Alone,” Jean cut in, silencing both of them. Struggling, throat still rough, he managed, “I want to talk to Neil alone.”

There were no words for the look Aaron shot him. No doubt an interrogation would be waiting for him back at their hotel.

“I’ll just be upstairs then,” Aaron conceded, far more accommodating than Neil expected, given how white his knuckles were. Katelyn followed after handing Neil a fresh cup, accompanied by a look he didn’t know how to interpret.

Once they were alone, Neil asked, “What did you want to talk about?”

Jean took a minute to piece his words together and Neil was silently amazed to witness what Jean looked like when he was in thought. It was a stark difference between what Mary had looked when she had found the pelt - Jean had sunk so much further into himself but his waking was calmer and less fevered. He wondered what made the difference, though in a sample size of two, there was no conclusion he could draw.

“Why did you give me this?” He rubbed the fur again, ensuring there was no mistake. Neil found himself copying the motion, stroking the hand tangled up with his.

“You remember my name but you don’t remember what I told you? It belonged to my mother and it helped her once.”

“Your mother’s…? But that’s...”

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” Neil assured, “I don’t even know where she got it. Are you...” Neil paused, sensing Jean had become a little agitated. “Are you glad to be awake? How much do you remember?”

Jean didn’t answer. Instead, he nodded towards the doorway Aaron and Katelyn had exited earlier. “That doctor - he wants to run tests?”

“He’ll be gentle.”

The next breath hitched. Fingers coiled tighter on both fur and skin. “Will you stay?”

“‘Course,” Neil said, smiling with all the warmth that trust filled him with. “I’ll go get them back, yeah?”

He was almost past the doorway when Jean called out, “Neil.”

“Hm?”

He looked nervous. Then he rasped, “You smell like the sea.”

Neil didn’t know what to make of that. “Is that a good thing?”

“It’s been so long since I’ve seen it.”

Neil didn’t know any better response than a challenge. “Stay awake and we can see about changing that.”

 

* * *

 

After a few days of poking a prodding from Aaron, an upgrade to more advanced muscle-strengthening exercises from Katelyn, and a horrendously poetic reunion from Riko over the phone (“ _You can’t imagine how difficult everything has been without you,_ ” was the only amount Neil could stomach hearing before he had excused himself), Jean had been given clearance to venture outside - supervised! - for an hour. True to his word, Neil took him to the nearest beach.

They arrived just as the sun peeped over the horizon. Neil watched Jean lose both his breath and his footing, gobsmacked and awestruck as though the sea were something divine and worthy of reverence. Then he was stumble-running for it, long legs kicking the sand that tried to slow his pace, leaving Neil smiling in literal dust.

The water didn’t slow him either, once he reached it, thighs rising over the waves so Jean could march further and further into the chilly deep blue before him, unbothered by any force exerted to push him back to shore despite the weakness Neil knew he had to be feeling. He was waist deep and soaked to his shoulders when he dove forward and submerged his head. Neil kept his panic in check when Jean didn’t surface for a while, but he spotted him not long after, to the right of where he had dived down, hooting to the seabirds and splashing like he was trying to wet the sky.

Relaxing, Neil spread out their beach towels and broke a protein bar out of the bag he had made for them last night.

The sun had nearly breached the horizon by the time Jean began making his way back to dry land. Neil, having sat down, turned to the bag and unpacked a blanket, since by all rights, Jean should be shivering himself out of his skin. To his surprise, despite the early autumn chill, Jean turned down the blanket and wasn’t shivering, and then to prove it he peeled off his (very wet) shirt, tossed it to the sand, and collapsed at Neil’s side. The heaves of his chest made the water drops shimmer, though Neil didn’t know why he was paying attention to that sort of thing.

“Enjoy yourself?” Neil asked, forcing the words past his (very dry) tongue.

Jean beamed brighter than the rising sun. “A bit.”

It wasn’t hard to get a bar plus some crackers and cheese into him, now that he’d spent his energy and run himself ravenous.

Soon a couple stragglers began joining them on the beach, though they kept a large distance and only waved the once. It was around this time, as their allotted hour was drawing close, that Jean broke the relative silence they had been keeping.

“You’re not like me, are you?”

Neil teased, “I’m not a fool who likes to splash around in freezing water before dawn, no.”

Jean rolled his eyes and got to his feet. “’S not what I mean.”

He walked back towards the water, restraining himself to a level that was only ankle deep. Neil followed, words carefully chosen and neutral as he could make them.

“Then it depends on what you did mean.”

“You…” he hesitated, biting his lip and Neil’s brain chose that moment to short-circuit without reason. “You were born... not in the sea, yes?”

“Uh, nope. Baltimore.”

“I see,” Jean sighed, dropping his shoulders and not looking particularly happy about whatever it was he saw. Neil didn’t know what to say to improve things.

They both looked out across the sea for a long moment. Neil could almost imagine he was hearing that same gurgle-bubble-swish song his mother had once shown him – the one she had insisted was there. He had always wondered if anyone else could hear it. He wondered if Jean could, wondered if maybe he was listening to it now.

When Neil deigned to turn his attention elsewhere, he noticed Jean was staring at him, tracing his profile in light twitches of his eyes. He didn’t turn away when he saw Neil had caught him, or when Neil felt his cheeks grow hot. Rather, he bore his eyes into Neil’s, enraptured as he was when he had first seen the ocean; Neil wasn’t sure he was breathing.

There was a need in Jean’s eyes now, a vital one that Neil thought he recognized. The type of need someone has when they stare out across the ever-expansive ocean and all they want to do is dive in and hop on a current like it was a train inviting them nowhere but _away,_ _away,_ _away_. Escape. Adventure. Wanderlust.

“Your mother, then,” Jean muttered, dimming the spell but not breaking it. “Was she like me?”

Giving up pieces of himself wasn’t exactly a trade Neil practiced in his spare time, probably a consequence of a childhood where nothing he said or did mattered. But Jean wasn’t angry from loneliness like Nathan had been, and he was no longer thoughtless like Mary both was and wasn’t - Jean was looking at Neil in a way that even Andrew hadn’t.

“She, too, made a miraculous recovery thanks to a dead animal.” Neil paused, wondering how it would feel to confess the next part, where the first thing she had done upon waking wasn’t hug him, or cry, or ask what he wanted for dinner (or hold his hand, fingers entwined) - the first thing she did was take him and run away from his father, entirely uncaring for her son’s broken toes or borderline hysteria.

No, he decided; that part - where he had been kidnapped by a stranger in his mother’s body - was better left unsaid. “I don’t think I ever knew where she was born. Never had any relatives come visit or anything.”

“I assume you didn’t give her the ‘dead animal’.”

“Sort of. I… made some trouble which lead to her finding it herself.”

“Whereabouts?”

“Tucked in a basement wall.” Jean nodded his head, as though basement walls were the usual place to find seal skin.

“What happened to her?”

And just like that, the spell shattered. Neil opened his mouth but couldn’t make a sound. He didn’t want to remember. Even after all these years, the memory of the night she vanished, abandoning him in a Super 8 motel, stole the air from his lungs. Remembering the days of utter hell that followed - cross-country hitchhiking, sleeping on the street, begging for food or spare change, only to arrive home where a father had died (of grief, said the obituary) and left a will that didn’t mention ‘Nathaniel’ or ‘son’ - drowned his chest.

He broke away in a stumble (and just _when_ had Jean spun a hand into his hair?) hoping the space would help him breathe. Jean’s apologetic eyes followed him. “Why do you think anything happened to her?”

“Something’s always happening to people like me and your mother.” Then, as if he sensed how unhelpful his attention was, Jean bent down for a rock, rolled it smooth in his hands, then threw it to the waves. Neil counted the skips. Five. Three. Seven.

Zero. Jean muttered an exotic curse but Neil’s pulse had settled a little bit.

Neil didn’t know what to say now that his wind had come back. The truth was probably a good option, if only he knew the whole of it. “We separated,” he said, a sugarcoat so thick even Andrew might have gagged, “and I haven’t seen or heard from her since. I don’t know where she is, or if she’s even alive.”

“...I’m sorry. It’s the same with my family too.”

Neil didn’t want to say that everyone assumed Jean’s family was dead. But he had traded so much of himself today. All he wanted was a little exchange. “The incident at sea?”

Jean nodded. “We were teaching my little sister how to hunt.” He skipped another rock. “You’re lucky - that you’ve been able to look. Riko never let me leave his side.”

“Riko doesn’t own you. The pelt... waking up was my mother’s second chance at a new life, one she chose for herself, if nothing else. Maybe it will be the same for you, seeing how similar you are.”

“Maybe.” Then, finished with his musing, Jean asked, “Will you swim with me?”

Neil wasn’t exactly looking forward to the chilly water. “It’s midnight, Cinderella. Our hour’s up.”

In a movement too quick to dodge, Jean splashed him. “Five more minutes!” he urged.

Challenge accepted. “You asked for it.”

Neil kicked water at him for revenge and ran to avoid the splash of retaliation. Then he ran faster to avoid Jean and his shouted threats to tackle Neil right into the waves.

 

* * *

 

It couldn’t last, of course. Neil and Aaron were needed back home and when Jean continued to improve without setback, it became harder to justify staying.

And then, one day, a car came for them at the hotel; a black exterior with custom red interiors, the same as the car Riko had sent for Neil ages ago. But this car didn’t take them to Riko.

“I must commend you both on a job well done,” said the man behind the mahogany desk. “Frankly, I had thought Jean was beyond healing but against all odds, you restored him to us. You’ve exceeded my expectations, gentlemen, and that is not an easy thing to do.”

It was high praise and higher still coming from Ichirou Moriyama, a man whose net worth rivaled the whole of the Royal Family and seemed to fill in all the empty space in the office. The wealth dripping off this man was stifling. Or maybe that was just his air of superiority.

Neil decided he disliked Ichirou just a tad bit less than he disliked Riko (but not by much). He was happy to let Aaron take the lead in the ensuing conversation, gratitude exchanged for inquiries concerning their invoice, which Neil half-expected Ichirou to negotiate.

“Thank you for your time, gentlemen,” Ichirou finally said. “I’ve arranged a flight for you in the morning - first class, as my thanks. Dr. Minyard, a car will be waiting for you downstairs. Mr. Josten, if you would remain where you are.”

Neil practiced releasing and relaxing every muscle in his arms and hands while Ichirou showed Aaron to the door. It closed and Neil was reminded nonsensically of a program he had watched where divers were let down in a cage - swimming with sharks.

“I understand you played an… unorthodox role in Jean’s recovery. I don’t mean to pry, _Nathaniel_ ,” he lifted the corners of his mouth when Neil started, “but it seems Jean has become rather attached to you. I was wondering if I could make you an offer to stay.”

...Had he heard that right? “What do you mean, ‘stay’?”

“Not as a doctor, of course, not that you’re accredited anyway.” Ichirou glided to a discreet minibar and began preparing himself a drink. “But surely there are things less tempting than a life in Anglesey, though London is our regular place business. It’d be no trouble to find you a flat in either city, we own multiple buildings.”

As if that’s where Neil most wanted to be, right back under someone else’s thumb. “It’s a generous offer, Mr. Moriyama, but I couldn’t possibly take it.”

“No?” he hummed, looking amused. “And return to what? A false name without a family to call your own? You Americans are all alike - spitting in the face of every good deal that comes your way.” He took a sip of his cocktail, considering Neil all the while. “I’m surprised you’d leave Jean behind.”

That was exactly what Neil had been trying not to think about. “He’s a free man. Who says he won’t follow me himself?”

Ichirou’s teeth shone through in a smile, enjoying a private joke. “Why do you think we had this conversation?”

 

* * *

 

The car that had been waiting for Aaron had already left when Neil made it back to the ground floor. There was a separate car waiting for him, and it took him to the house instead of the hotel.

The only problem was, Riko had beat him there, his ostentatious car and driver lulling outside. Neil dashed past them with such worry, he hardly noticed that his own car didn’t leave.

Riko and Jean were in the middle of a stand-off in the foyer. Jean was dressed and clean, his hair freshly cut, waiting for him. An open backpack lay at his feet, the same one Neil had been bringing to their beach adventures. Riko was the exact opposite of his usual self: spine hunched with heaving lungs, shirt hem untucked and collar uneven, dust visible in his hair.

“No!” He was shouting, his head shaking and trembling, short hair disheveled as his hands clawed through it. “No, you can’t _leave_. I forbid it!”

Jean stood strong and tall on his feet, glancing quickly at Neil with an unspoken plea to leave. Neil fervently shook his head.

“You cast out the right to have a say over what I do, Riko. You saw to that yourself, the night you burned my soul away.” Riko grimaced as if he were holding back a howl and Jean drove forward the point, “Nothing that concerns me is your decision anymore.”

“The person that you are is entirely my creation! That gives me a say!”

Neil bristled at the claim of ownership, but Jean was unaffected. “I won’t say I’m ungrateful for everything you’ve done, Riko.” Though he clearly _was_. “I wouldn’t be where I am today without you but this is goodbye.”

Riko scoffed in some semblance of a laugh. “Not as long as you have that second skin of yours.” He swooped towards Jean, and Neil realized too late what he was moving for - the backpack. More specifically, it’s contents.

“You see Jean, you can’t leave.”

Neil froze, eyes unblinking as they zeroed in on Riko’s fingers, mangled and twisted, soiling his mother’s pelt. He was surprised at how sick he felt, like Riko had ripped him open and grasped his stomach instead of the one remnant of his absent mother. Neil struggled to keep his breathing even as he fought back the nausea roiling in his gut, ignored the panic filling every iota of his limbs, a panic unlike anything he’d felt, not even when he discovered Aaron had handled it.

Jean hesitated, then rose his shoulders as though in preparation for a fight. “That isn’t mine, Riko.”

“I know a selkie’s pelt when I see one.”

_...selkie…?_

Jean shook his head. “It’s just the pelt of a regular seal.”

“Like hell,” Riko growled, raising the pelt and twisting the skin near the neck to deepen his hold. “Tell me the truth.”

Jean stayed silent, probably to make a point. Neil felt a little like speaking up, if only in hopes that the chokehold he felt mirrored around his neck would ease, but he didn’t dare to – not least because he thought he’d be sick if he opened his mouth.

A horrible thought stirred in the back of his mind and then began to sharpen its edges.

“It doesn’t matter,” Riko said in a rush, hurling the powerless pelt to the floor. Neil coughed to cover his flinch at seeing it treated so roughly. “I commanded you to never leave me when I did have the power.”

“We’ve reached the end of ‘never’. You’re the one who taught me power always has a limit.”

Jean knelt down and gathered up the pelt Riko had flung, smoothing out the folds with a reverential touch. Neil soul relaxed, and everything eased to see it back in trusted, familiar hands.

Riko, in contrast, grew more unsteady. Fine tremors began afflicting his hands. “No… they were supposed to heal you, they were -”

“I’m leaving,” Jean rose, folding the pelt as he went, “and I’m not going to tell you where.”

“I can follow you.” It was a threat, coming from that mouth. “I can find you wherever you go, you know I can.”

“Ironically, you can’t. Not without Ichirou’s say-so.”

Riko blanched. Neil could have sworn the colour of his skull was somehow thinning through all the blood, muscle, and skin that covered it. Riko clearly wasn’t used to losing. “I can refuse to let you leave, here and now.”

That’s when a nondescript man in a suit, whom Neil was shocked to realize had driven him here, interrupted, “I can’t let you do that, sir. I have orders direct from your brother himself; I’m to take you straight to him once you make your goodbyes.”

Riko couldn’t look more like someone had ripped out his heart with their bare hands. Neil thought he must be realizing this wasn’t just a loss, it was a betrayal.

“You…” he turned to look at Jean, expression struck with the early stages of grief, “… _consorted_ with my brother?”

“By your own admission you wouldn’t have let me leave.”

“We’re _family!_ I _love you,_ Jean.”

Neil watched Jean clench his jaw, physically biting back everything he wanted to say in response. It was probably wise; nothing Jean could say would be what Riko wanted to hear.

Eventually, Jean settled with, “I will never forget.”

But he didn’t clarify. Then he nodded to Ichirou’s driver and both non-doctor and ex-patient watched as Riko was muscled outside, then into the car and away, kicking and fighting and straining for Jean the whole way.

Letting Riko keep his romantic fantasy was a danger and a bigger kindness than Neil would have afforded in the same position.

“Okay?” he asked Jean.

After deep breath, “Not yet.”

It would have to do for now.

 

* * *

 

_It was barely sunrise. The sun was only a vague suggestion of peach-coloured light inching along the horizon. Seagulls cried distantly along the shoreline and they were the only witness besides Neil to Mary’s communion with the sea._

_He had been all but dragged out of bed that morning, Mary shaking him awake, insisting that they had to be ‘there’ while the sun still touched the water. Such was her rush, she hadn’t let him get dressed, opting instead to steal the motel’s blacket, and dash it around him like a cape._

_“Mom?” Neil tried, fighting back a yawn and losing._

_Mary, poised tall with open arms on the cliffside, took in a deep breath but she didn’t answer her son. Maybe she hadn’t even heard him._

_Time passed. Eventually, Neil found his head lolling, eyes heavy with missed sleep. He was about to give in and curl up on the ground with his blanket when Mary said, “Abram? Come here.”_

_He shuffled to her side near the cliff’s edge, dragging his blanket through the grass and dirt. Once he was in reach, Mary gripped his shoulders and forced him to stand in front of her, fingers long, clammy, and undeniable._

_“Can you hear them?” she asked, voice almost breathless with that same, strange depth of feeling that she’d had ever since they had run from home._

_"The birds?” Neil asked, not able to hear anyone else._

_But she shook her head. “No, Abram,” she said, rubbing his shoulders, hard. “Beneath the waves,” she insisted. “Listen.”_

_He tried. He honed his ears to leave behind the noise of the birds and the wind, pushed them to focus only on the water crashing onto the rocks below them, and then willed them to listen even further down, to whatever – or whoever – lurked beneath the surface._

_He was startled by a hand carding through his hair. “Not so hard, son. Breathe, Abram.” A light chuckle lay in her voice. He tried to remember another time he had ever heard her laugh. His sleepy brain came up empty. “Breathe deep and breathe well – you need salt in your lungs to hear them.”_

_She tugged him back to herself, making him flush with her belly so that he could inhale in time with her._

_In… Hold…. Out… In… Hold…. Out…_

_After a few minutes, he picked up on a small sound that was just out of place. It sounded like… a gurgle of bubbles, just out of place with the otherwise regular rhythm of ocean waves._

_In… Hold…. Out…_

_There…! If he listened that much closer, there was a second sound accompanying the first; like fine sandpaper rubbing soft wood. And another, like chalky stones being made to tap together._

_It was beautiful. A type of underwater symphony, the sort that was beyond Neil’s capacity to explain._

_“I hear it. I think.” He knew. “What is it?” he asked, keeping his voice quiet so he didn’t lose what he was hearing._

_“_ _A song,” she whispered, kissing his hair with pride. “For when we get lost or feel alone and need reminding of the way home.”_

_He knew instinctively that she wasn’t speaking about Baltimore, even though it was the only home he had ever known._

_“When did we get lost?” Neil hadn’t been able to follow their trail or deduce where they were going but he had assumed his mother knew her destination. She was constantly poring over maps and directories. To his young self, it was impossible to imagine she had gotten them lost._

_“Long before you were born, little darling. But we’ll find our way and when we do, everything will change. You’ll see.”_

_They stayed until the sun broke over the horizon. Then they stayed some more, until the sounds of the waking city behind them overpowered the song beneath the water. Two car horns exchanged honks nearby and Mary let out a mournful sigh, spell broken, song lost._

_“We need some food for you, little darling,” she said, pulling him, half-heartedly, away from the cliff’s edge. It was the first time he had been tempted to forsake her and stay._

 

* * *

****

First class was a luxury Neil was happy to miss out on, considering Economy meant he’d be seated next to Jean. Aaron said he wouldn’t miss him, though Neil took a double-take when he recognized Katelyn (in civilian clothes!) settling into her seat behind Aaron and grabbing a book from her carry-on. She waved while he gawked, smiling and chipper as though airplanes were the usual spot the three of them were together. A pilot’s announcement cut off anything Neil thought he might say to her, so he settled for a hard look in Aaron’s direction, who was steadfastly reading over the safety card. Neil wondered if Aaron could feel how red his ears were.

“Tell me Katelyn’s not a selkie too,” he said to Jean, once he found his way back.

Jean shot him an odd look. “She isn’t.”

“Siren, maybe? Nymph? Anything at all to explain why she’s on a plane following someone as sourdough as Aaron Minyard?”

Jean chuckled a little, good-natured about Neil’s teasing. “I think that’s what they call ‘puppy love’.”

Maybe, but Neil wasn’t convinced Aaron knew how to do anything innocent or casual. There was certainly nothing puppy-like about him.

After take-off, Neil bided his time until drinks had been served and the people around them had fallen asleep, before breaching the topic he was dying to talk about.

“So this,” he still paused on the word, “selkie pelt. It’s not my mom’s is it? It’s mine.”

Jean sighed. “I thought you knew that when you gave it to me. You know that’s a proposal of marriage among selkiefolk? Exchanging pelts, living in each other’s souls, ‘be mine as I shall be yours’ and all that.”

Neil blinked a few times to clear the wax from his ears. “Sorry, what was that last bit?”

Jean blushed. “‘Be mine, as I shall be yours.’ It’s a traditional vow for selkie partnerships.”

Neil had to open and close his mouth a few times while he chewed on that. “Are _we_ in a partnership? Did I _marry_ you when I gave you that?”

“I don't know what you would call us. I don’t exactly have a pelt to give back to you so we can’t be a pod in the sea.” He looked so hurt to admit that, Neil couldn’t help reaching out for his hand, twining their fingers like Jean had done the first time they really met each other. It didn’t seem to help.

“And then,” Jean continued, breaking Neil’s grip and reaching for his bag, “there’s the fact you gave it to me without knowing its significance. Even humans don’t consider that a marriage.” His bag and the pelt inside rested on his lap for a moment. Slowly, he passed it into Neil’s. “You should have it back. Willingly giving someone your pelt enslaves you to their every command and that’s not a power you should be granting to just anybody.”

“Wait a minute - enslaves?”

Jean didn’t repeat himself or elaborate. Instead he said, “I’m tired, Neil” and turned his back to rest. Neil took the opportunity to reflect on what he had learned and reframe the big events of his life.

 

* * *

 

Annoyingly, their flight connected in Toronto with a two hour layover, long enough for a jetlagged lunch which Katelyn insisted they all eat together. Surprisingly, the meal and company were pleasant, though Neil was sure it would have been a disaster without Katelyn’s excited and easy chatter that she had never been in an airplane before and the craziest development had happened in the book she was reading and did you know she had family who lived New York City? Aaron jumped in afterwards to suggest a road trip from Clemson to NYC, which both of them began immediately to arrange.

It was a palpable contrast to how Neil saw his own future, which was less like directions from Google and more like a sheaf of papers blown into the wind.

Satisfied that neither Katelyn nor Aaron would miss them, Neil turned to Jean and said, “Can I talk to you?”

They walked until they found an empty patch of chairs. Neil didn’t bother settling too comfortably before he blurted, “Maybe you shouldn’t get on this plane.”

“What?”

“You’re following a guy who accidently tried to marry you.” And then maybe fell for you. A little bit. Which was no big deal, Neil had fallen in love before. “You could hop on any other plane, go anywhere in the world. Why come with me? Is it because I’m the only other selkie you know?”

“First of all, I’m pretty sure you’re only half. Second, I’ve been without a real pod for twelve years; it’s not a crime to want your family back, Neil.”

“I know that better than anyone.” He gripped the bag that Jean had give him, squeezed it once for courage, then held it out between them. “Take it back.”

Jean pushed it back to Neil’s chest. “I meant what I said -”

“No, it’s my pelt, and I’m saying you should have it. Run, use it, find your family.”

“Neil, I told you - this is big, it isn’t like I’m borrowing a pair of runners.”

“Well, it’s sort of like that.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Alright, it’s a car instead of runners.”

“It’s a _marriage_ proposal.”

“Are you turning me down, then?”

Jean looked stricken. “Neil.”

“Maybe I just don’t believe you after all this. You’re telling me this piece of dead skin can turn you into some magical seal? Tall tale, if I ever heard one. I’d have to see it to believe it.”

Jean considered him for a long time. He pressed the backpack down, until it sat on the floor between them and said, “...There’s another reason you don’t want me in Clemson, isn’t there?”

It only occurred to Neil then to wonder if his 'Untouchable' intuition was another selkie trait. Jean was startlingly perceptive and it made Neil nervous to be so transparent.

“There was...” he bit his cheek. How did he even begin to describe Andrew? “...someone before. I gave them my pelt without knowing what it was and looking back, I think it tore our relationship apart.”

“You love them?”

Neil bit his lip against answering. He hadn’t had the decency to say it to Andrew before things turned sour, and no one else could be the first to hear him say the actual words.

“I just have to know if the truth makes a difference.”

“And if I take your pelt to the ocean, you can’t repeat history.”

He wasn’t wrong but Neil hadn’t honestly thought of that. All he had thought was, “If you follow me back to Clemson now, I might damn my ex and take whatever happy ending I can get with you. He deserves better from me than that.”

Jean gave him a look, one so mournful and admiring he wondered if that’s what falling in love looked like. “A year, then,” Jean offered. “One year to make your peace with him and then I’ll return for you.”

 

* * *

 

“If you see my mom,” Neil said, waist deep in Canadian water, holding a seal skin, “actually, I don’t know what to tell her.”

“I’ll tell her you searched,” Jean assured, stripping off his wet clothes in the middle of Lake Ontario.

Neil supposed it was as good a message as any. “One year,” he reminded. “To find your real family.”

“They may not recognize me in your fur. We’re an arctic breed.”

Suddenly Neil worried about all he didn’t know about the differences between seal pelts. Would his fur keep Jean warm enough if he swam to the arctic? Didn’t he need blubber? “You’ll be careful?”

“For the man who saved my life, you worry an awful lot.”

“Seems to be the right amount of worried from where I’m standing.” He hesitated over handing Jean his pelt, first because he wanted a chance to ogle a little, then later because he was frightened. “Giving you the pelt doesn’t enhance feelings, right?”

Jean smiled and brushed some of Neil’s hair back. “Whatever you feel for me, is you and only you. The same as you felt for him.”

“Andrew.”

“Andrew,” Jean said, trying it on his tongue. “Why am I giving you to him again?”

“I’m the one giving here!” Jean chuckled and ducked his head at Neil’s prompting, letting him wrap the pelt lengthwise around his broad shoulders. It wasn’t exactly a perfect fit. “You sure you won’t be cramped in there?”

“It’ll stretch.” Probably with magic. Without stopping to think about it, Neil reached up to lay a kiss on Jean’s brow. Jean was blushing when he came down. “What was that for?”

“A placeholder,” Neil sighed, “I’m not ready for that vow just yet. Give me about a year.”

“What if you’re married to someone else by then?”

“Will you not want to hear it?”

They grinned at each other and if ever there was a time to kiss him it was now. When Jean moved in, it was only to drop a kiss on Neil’s brow and then one cheek. Neil refused to whine about it.

“One year,” Jean reminded, stepping back, away from land and further into the water.

‘ _One year_ ’ Neil mouthed back, keeping his eyes ready for the magic moment but Jean cheated him of it by diving beneath the surface. The only proof he had it worked was when a something took out his knees from behind and Neil flopped face first into the lake.

A large seal swam playful circles around him, diving beyond the reach of Neil’s grabby hands, fins tapping and brushing all his ticklish spots. Neil laughed to see Jean so vital and nimble, so opposite to what he had been as a human.

Jean surfaced after a while, head level with Neil’s instead of towering above. Neil took advantage and stole another kiss because he always had to have the last word.

“Go,” he urged. And with a call like a song, Jean dove back beneath the water and never resurfaced.

 

* * *

 

Katelyn’s presence turned out to be even more advantageous than Neil could have foreseen. Once Aaron had discovered Neil had contacted Andrew and was trying to make peace with him, Neil received a very long and very angry voicemail but that was about all Aaron could do, short of flying back from New York early to personally bar them apart. But by that point, Andrew had enough and put his foot down with Aaron in a phone call of his own.

Reconciling with Andrew hadn’t been easy, not least because he didn’t believe Neil about the selkie thing. Neil tried not to be bothered by that - if he hadn’t felt the nausea of Riko trying to command a pelt that hadn’t been given to him, Neil might not have believed it either. Hell, he still hadn’t really believed until Jean transformed in front of him.

But as the weeks passed, the truth of his heritage mattered less and it mattered more that Andrew noticed how he had changed.

“Too bad I’ve already replaced you,” Andrew had said, nearly breaking Neil’s heart all over again. “I got a cat. She’s only almost as stupid as you are.”

In truth, getting Andrew’s cat to like and accept him was a more grueling task than Neil had prepared for, but four months in, he thought it was going well.

The real surprise for Jean and Neil was that seven months into their agreed upon year, a telepathic channel opened. Neil had nearly dropped the mugs of coffee he had made fresh for himself and Andrew the first time he heard Jean’s familiar lilt wondering what type of fish Neil might prefer to eat if he were with him in the sea.

He guessed that’s what Jean had meant about living in each other’s souls. He had immediately pretended to be getting a phone call and excused himself onto the balcony of Andrew’s apartment to explore this new ability.

Later, after frightening Jean half-way out of his seal skin, ‘ _What do you mean squid is your favourite seafood?!_ ’

He sounded so _happy_. Neil didn’t know how he managed that over telepathy but he smiled to hear it. The sea had been good for Jean. ‘ _No one ever showed you a nice time by taking you out for calamari, did they?_ ’

‘ _The tentacles squirm all the way down!_ ’

‘ _Not when they’re cooked, they don’t. I’ll treat you when you’re back._ ’

Jean seemed to warm at the reminder. ‘ _Not so long now. How’s Andrew?_ ’

‘ _He’s good. We’ve worked some things out, his cat’s coming around to liking me. He doesn’t believe me about the whole selkie deal, though. You’ll have to transform in front of him._ ’

‘ _Maybe you’ll be the one transforming._ ’

‘ _Me?_ ’ Neil didn’t know how he felt about that idea. Anxious, probably.

‘ _You should know what it’s like. I promise you’ll love it._ ’

‘ _Sure,_ **_if_ ** _you haven’t stretched the skin out too loose. Did you find them?_ ’

‘ _Just my sister so far. She’s got a mate. They’ve had three pups, one just born this season._ ’

Neil smiled, quickly googling pictures of baby arctic seals to better picture it. ‘ _You’re an uncle._ ’

‘ _Yeah and she’s amazing, you’d love my niece. How are Katelyn and Aaron?_ ’

‘ _Engaged. Katelyn's decided she wants American citizenship. You have no idea how badly I want to tell them we beat them to the punch._ ’

‘ _I’m not sure either of our ‘marriages’ count,_ **_sweetheart_ ** _._ ’ The pet-name was a tease, but Neil’s heart still fluttered to hear it.

‘ _They will._ ’

Jean’s shock was palpable through the line. ‘ _You still - ? What about Andrew?_ ’

Neil had been giving a lot of thought to that. ‘ _Have you ever heard of polyamory?_ ’

**Author's Note:**

> This is the most grueling time I've ever had with any fic ever and it would never have gotten accomplished without a small team of round-the-clock encouragement and inspiration! Kudos to [leahlisabeth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fortheloveofcamelot/pseuds/Leahelisabeth), [jamsiee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesiee), [stormageddondarklordofbuns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormageddondarklordofbuns) and especially [llheji](https://llheji.tumblr.com/) who added so much magic to this story through her art!! I wouldn't have finished this without you guys. <3
> 
> This fic has also been a work in secret progress for two people I felt it was owed: 
> 
> [stormageddondarklordofbuns](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormageddondarklordofbuns) (babe) as different as this is from your own selkie AU, I hope it inspires you the same way your fic and our conversations always inspire me; 
> 
> [nekojita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekojita), since you're practically a torchbearer for JeanNeil, I felt this had to be dedicated to you because I never would have gone through with writing a JeanNeil pairing if I hadn't read what you and others filled in for that small corner of the fandom. Much love to both of you! <3 <3


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